Campaignless Transition: Arma 3

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The attractive island exploration simulator multiplayer military simulator, Arma III, has officially transitioned from its extended beta phase into full release mode. Sort of. Bohemia have dropped the beta tag but they haven’t added a campaign to the game yet – that’ll be released in the near future and patched in. After months of discoveries, which mostly involved Craig crashing helicopters while eyeing up shacks, bees and Altis, it feels like the game has been out for a good while already. The release version includes the full island of Altis, with 12 showcases and 3 faction showcases, 10 challenges and 9 multiplayer scenarios. We’ll have a Wot I Think soon. For now, engage your visual organs and watch the launch trailer.

There’s a period of about twenty seconds when I see the Arma that I’ll inevitably end up playing. The one about hiking and looking at the scenery. I quite like the idea of a war happening in the background while I tour the hills and valleys, but only as a thing to observe in the distance. That’s where I like war to be – off in the distance, occasionally lighting up the night sky. Well, I’d rather wars weren’t happening at all but the trailer is so excited about them that I’d feel bad asking for them to be taken out entirely.

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Excellent game. So many improvements. Those complaining about content have short memories, the game will be flush with hardware in a few months thanks to workshop. The devs have focussed on improving the underlying mechanics and animations. Can’t wait to see what time will bring.

While the mod scene will fill out the content soon enough the issue for mission builders is “how many people will play my mission if I require 3rd party mods”, I’ve harped on about this on other forums but BIS have a tonne of content from ARMA2 that the mod ‘All in ARMA’ enables you to play with in ARMA3, if they officially support backwards compatibility then the ‘content’ complaints vanish overnight and they’ll get a few extra sales of ARMA2 to boot.

What bugs me most about the lack of content is the ultimate impact it’ll have on the game, Edge gave it a 7 making it obvious there was a lack of content, that could stop people looking at the game, reduce sales and BIS’s ability to make more content and sequels etc… It could of been avoided, it should of been avoided and as a fan since OFP’s demo was on the front of PC gamer over 10 years ago that’s why I’m disappointed.

wth?!?
i was under the impression that the price would stay 44 usd, if it didnt include the campaign or a campaign. The whole point of waiting and paying more was so it wouldn’t be update city every second and would have access to everything. and now it’s 60 for a ‘your gonna have to wait longer’? or the mod community will fill in the gaps?

I think I’ll wait those few months before buying, seeing that BIS has not delivered. and if i knew it was going to be in perpetual beta would have bought sooner at 44.

Arma is primarily designed as a moddable sandbox infantry/combined arms multiplayer mission platform. At its heart mods are going to be essential to the Arma experience, and they’re free unlike DLC which fills in content gaps in most other games.

Why should I be upset if a bunch of whiny kids won’t buy it because they hate having to download mods off of Steam workshop?

Wrong. Banner Saga showed how you do this operationally right. You release a cheaper multiplayer – sandbox in this case – and charge later for the full single player release. But such an expensive price for an unfinished game without any solo content is laughably bad. Or alternatively, just finish the game properly and release it when its ready. Nuts idea – I know.

+1 Arma may have been polished and made modern”for the kids”. However everyone knows its about the community,and what it makes and shares.
Without doubt more content has been created for the arma series than anything else.link to armaholic.com.
This is a platform for the community,always has been.As a fan boy i have tried to break this one,and all i can say is the ghost of harvest red has been put to rest.

How can you even say that? The mod community is not supposed to bring us a proper campaign, regardless of whether they can or will eventually do that anyway. We want our money’s worth of game and at the moment the pre-order price point looks a lot more reasonable than it is right now for a final release.

It doesn’t need community content, it’s just that the community content often ends up having some gems in it. Essentially it’s a lot better with them than without. Who knows, maybe it’ll have its first sale when the single player campaign pops up.

I loved Arma 2 campaigns, specially EW. Bought just for that.
If you are selling a game with singleplayer, then a single player mode is required. Not a multiplayer offline with bots. A good single player, like a campaign with story and all, preferably.

I bought this game for the community content, the single player missions that have been ported over from Arma2/1/Opfor (steal the car anyone?), the campaign (in parts) and all the new showcases, single player missions and the tons of crazy new kit they’ve got in this over Arma2 that i am just going to play with in the editor.

Mortars that actually work, Uav’s that work, robo hover copter things that i have no idea how they work, but i’ll be ramming one into another soldiers face to see what happens if i can. Glad i coughed up the cash early, bargain…

Yup, paying extra for pretty much exactly the same content that you could have got two days ago for £10 less is a rip-off. If last week’s beta wasn’t a ‘release’ then neither is this. It’s just an excuse to up the price.

By lack of content i meant vehicles and assets, which has a lot of people upset at arma hq. This is easily remedied as modders love putting in vehicles, especially now the workshop is here. Hardcore fans arnt that worried about the lack of campaign as they have never been worthwhile on release day anyway.

Yeah, bro, I love me some Call of Battlefield. No, wait, Battlefield Duty. Shit, I forget. They are like the same game these days. I can’t wait to level up my character and pick the running fast spell!

In all seriousness: I play Battlefield when I want quick action and lots of shooting. It’s like being in the mood for an 80s action movie. I play Arma when I want to play a game that requires a bit more skill and a lot more strategy. How anyone can put the two games side-by-side is beyond me.

“arma series is shit compared to battlefield. Hey I paid for this game but I might get my campaign as a patch. lol.”

You mean like all the free DLCs you get with Battlefield?
At least Bohemian isn’t going to charge you when they patch in a campaign…and if I want new maps and campaign they will be free….unlike EA/Dice who are going to pillage my account just for a few measly maps every 2 months.

All of my yes! I have only a few gripes with the launch, and the developers. first, the action menu is still a piece of shit, and after several hundered posts in the ticket that dsylecxi drew attention to, there hasn’t been a single developer response. It IS fixable, they should do it, or at least acknowledge its a problem. Switching weapons through 3 actions is absolutely ridiculous.

Second, it still seems to have terrible optimization, gpu-wise. Anyone know if this is gonna be fixed, or if it is in the roadmap?

Thirdly: FolkARPS, when are we switching to A3? Im so anxious i could explode.

As much as I hate the menu itself, I kind of like the clumsiness or changing weapons. It’s not just an action that takes half a second, but you actually have to think in advance a bit. Sort of like a feeling of realism and immersion through bad design. Granted I’d probably be happier without it though.

Hm, running under fire to a vehicle,bullets whizzing around, and then standing next to it for 3 seconds only tos sloowly take out my sidearm does not look like much realism to me. Also opening doors with your butt.

Take a look.
If you are a fan,you’re already in.If your not, your erudite friend/Roguish partner will enlighten yourself to,a world of paralyzing fear and ultimate power.To have lost your squad and at, the last, fashion a plan to ensure the destruction of your foes.Truly such a feat should be recorded in more than bytes.Lo! Wax… or even….Rock.
If your good friend/MATE/Co-Dependent doesn’t play Arma,then get on.
This game is worth it for the Editor alone.You can effectively make endless campaigns yourself.
The reason that there is no campaign yet is that Mareck and friends have had way too much fun already.
You get full updated engine,models,content, editor tools,well over 1000 fan made missions and mods, and and archive of over a decade of simple commands to create your own game/campaign/COMMANDO DEATH MISSION :)

Hmmmmm… Sorry folks, but I did enjoy arma II’s campaign a lot (even better than the first OF, IMO), and no, I don’t give a darn about multipalyer.
No solo, no sale.
Can’t wait.
(And no, community missions won’t do it, not in the first place anyway. The only game I actually buy for a multiplayer mode is named “worms” and it ain’t the same kind of war)
(Well, it IS, really, only with less looking around and more bananas in it.)

I have tried playing the last two ARMAs, hoping to recapture the magic of the original few Operation Flashpoint campaigns which I loved. So far it hasn’t happened. I won’t pay $60 for just a multi player module. I’ll wait for the campaign and see if it gets anywhere close to my OF memories.

How do they explain to people who just bought the game that there is no campaign to play? “Hey thanks for buying, now wait a few weeks to play the game please!” I’m aware most people who buy the game are into the multiplayer aspect of it, but its still something really questionable to do.

I wish people would calm down about the lack of campaign. They could have just delayed the release until November. If the lack of campaign is such a problem, just wait till the third part has been released. Those claiming that there’s no single player content probably missed the fact that there are at least 20 GREAT missions available from the workshop, many feature audio dialogue from earlier Arma games.
I only ever played the campaign in Arma 2, it’s important for me too — but it seems pointless to complain because it’s not going to be ready for a few weeks.

I sort of understand why people are unhappy about the content situation — I think a lot of fans love to throw around real-world kit like Apaches and M113s, I also hope to see some of this old stuff made available but to be fair the future setting and the Mediterranean location nicely distinguish Arma 3 from all the other military FPS games. Personally I’m delighted with Arma 3, I don’t think its perfect by any means, but it got huge potential.

Take a look.
If you are a fan,you’re already in.If your not, your erudite friend/Roguish partner will enlighten yourself to,a world of paralyzing fear and ultimate power.To have lost your squad and at, the last, fashion a plan to ensure the destruction of your foes.Truly such a feat should be recorded in more than bytes.Lo! Wax… or even….Rock.
If your good friend/MATE/Co-Dependent doesn’t play Arma,then get on.
This game is worth it for the Editor alone.You can effectively make endless campaigns yourself.
The reason that there is no campaign yet is that Mareck and friends have had way too much fun already.
You get full updated engine,models,content, editor tools,well over 1000 fan made missions and mods, and and archive of over a decade of simple commands to create your own game/campaign/COMMANDO DEATH MISSION :)

I just had to jump in a Littlebird and take a 20mins flight along the shores all around Altis. It really was a very nice experience, lots of things to look at. I mean come on when was the last time you joined a multiplayer server in any FPS just to enjoy the scenery for nearly half an hour. xD